The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-12-31

he had planned had been his actual
career. He saw the friends of his youth,
more faithful than he, occupying po-
sitions of honor, and possessing the
esteem Of all who knew them. He saw
them surrounded by happy children,
while his improvidence, intemperance
and manifold sins had alienated his
own offspring, and hurried heart-bro-
ken wife into premature grave, and
he alone, dishonored, saw only desola-
ton, sorrow, along the dreary waste Of
the vanished years. AS the old man
beheld happy homes shedding their
light upon the wintry earth, and happy
hearts shining from happy faces, and
contrasted them with his own forlorn
condition, he said j: "Such had 1 been,
had 1 remained true to the ideals of
youth, had 1 but been faithful to the
obligations that were laid upon me.
Would that l could live my life over,
how would 1 guard every step from
wrong; how persevere in the peaceful
and pleasant paths Of wisdom" And
as he mOurned the desolate past, and
lamented over the state in which he
stood, at the end of the transgressor's
way, suddenly he woke to find that he
had but dreamed; that he was still a
young man, at the beginning, and not
the end Of the long pilgrimage, and
that what he had seen was only his
possible future, and not his actual past;
that he had only seen vision of what
might be, what would be, should he
keep to the left, and avoid the right
way that leads along the flo very paths
of virtue. And as he saw this he found
in the sadness Of a possible old age full
of regret and remorse, a beacon light to
warn him away from even the begin
nings of the downward route. And
then, as the church bells rang the de-
parture of the slowly dying year, he
made those resolves which faithfully
adhered to by him or by you, young
reader-will make each New Year the
broad stair on which the happy soul
will mount to nohler heights of expert
ence and life, as the bells
Ring out the old, ring in the new:
Ring out the false, ring in the true"
This is the lesson of the season.
''The year is growing DID," His days
are well-nigh spent. AS we look back
ward through the months and find them
full of joy or sorrow in the RETROSPECT
ton, so shall we, at the end of life find
ourselves sad or joyful, as we see along
the past, 'duties performed, and
days well-spent," or behold neglected
obligations, and wasted privileges.
The old year should be youths even
tide, when meditation should possess
the hearts of all, but especially the
hearts of the young, and when they
should find the past twelve-month a
type of life's year, and see in its prog.
ress similitude of human existence.
As the New Year is to the old, as are
the first days to the last days, such a
relation does youth Dear to age such
is the influence of LIES beginning on
| its close, its morning on its evening
its January on its December. Where
fore, let the short, dark, swiftly-laps-
ing days of the years decline admonish
all, especially those in life's bright
morning, to consecrate the hours to the
healthful task of reviewing the past,
and forecasting and shaping the future,
so that when comes the setting of life's
sun, not only will it's serene radiance
fall across the dark valley, toward
which all steps are journeying, and on
earth Ginger like twilight hues when
the bright sun has set," but in the soul
shall be fulfilled the gracious prophecy
Elm the evening time it shall be
| lipht.D JwH